Asian film fans will admire the beauty found in director Park Chan-Wook's quizzical period drama, "The Handmaiden."

Asian film fans will admire the beauty found in director Park Chan-Wook's quizzical period drama, "The Handmaiden." Others might be put off by the length and potentially confusing narrative of the film opening Friday.

For decades, director Park has been South Korea's most well-known cinematic export, partially because of the support of Quentin Tarantino for his 2003 action flick "Old Boy."

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In his latest film, a young Korean woman named Sookee (Kim Tae-ri) is sent to a large mansion to act as the handmaiden for Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee), the niece of a wealthy book collector. She's actually been planted there by a con artist (Ha Jung-woo) who pretends to be a count in order to woo Hideko so he can steal her family's fortune. Sookee soon realizes she's also falling for her mistress, too, and doesn't want the count to use her as he intends.

Inspired by Sarah Waters' 2002 Victorian thriller "Fingersmith," this is a story told in three distinct chapters, using a similar structure as Park's earlier film "Joint Security Area" — you learn more about each character and what's really happening with each consecutive chapter.

‘The Handmaiden,’ director Park Chan Wook’s new movie, is not an open book, but worth the nearly three hours. (null)

The first chapter tells the entire story from one perspective, leaving out important elements and throwing in a twist ending. The second chapter then focuses on Lady Hideko and how she was abused and manipulated by her sleazy uncle who is grooming the young girl to read his collection of erotic literature to prospective buyers after her aunt (his former wife) commits suicide. To see what Hideko is put through, you can hardly blame her. There's also that ominous basement in her uncle's library that offers even more unseen horrors.

After making his English-language debut with 2013's "Stoker," it's surprising to see Park making a film that's less likely to be accessible to Americans unfamiliar with the history of Korea and Japan's cultural relations. "The Handmaiden" is a slow and rather quiet film, but as with much of Park's prior work, it's also absolutely gorgeous, with so much attention paid to every visual detail from the costumes to the mansion's many rooms.

More than anything, Park's keen eye for casting has found him two beautiful and talented young actresses to play roles that require a lot of emotional misdirection as well as a good deal of sexuality. In the film's last chapter, we learn there's more to everything we perceived in the first telling of their story.

Actresses Kim Min-hee (l.) and Kim Tae-ri do a fantastic job with a layered and sensual script. (null/Handout)

For such a dark film, director Park finds humor in some of the oddest places, which has always been part of his appeal. Possibly one of the most satisfying moments involves the two young women trashing the pervert uncle's library of valuable books.

The nearly three-hour runtime, though, may be one of the film's biggest hurdles. But the time seems necessary for a story that adds more layers the further we're taken down the rabbit hole.

Ultimately, "The Handmaiden" might be an acquired taste even for devout fans of Asian cinema, but even harder to attract mainstream moviegoers.